Four quick hits taking us from Vietnam to the Queen of England

Oscar Wilde characterized foxhunting as “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.” It’s a perfect epigram that takes an elegant swipe at the British hunters, not the foxes they hunted. I’m struggling to come up with something equally elegant about the Civil War in Syria, in which both sides are unspeakable and one side (the rebel side that Obama has announced we’re now aiding) advertising itself as practicing cannibalism. There are no good guys in this war, there are only bad guys with hapless civilians in the middle. I am not sanguine about Obama’s delayed decision to get the U.S. involved. If he’d acted two years ago, he might have enabled a fairly bloodless transition from Bashir al Assad to something resembling moderation in Syria. By waiting two years, he’s allowed Iran to get firmly entrenched on Assad’s behalf, and al Qaeda to get firmly entrenched on the rebels’ behalf. So, as in Libya, Americans are aiding al Qaeda. The Benghazi attack shows just how well that turned out. Anyway, if you want to know a bit more about the players in that mess (which either be a slowly bleeding quagmire or a true Armageddon) here’s some info. The one thing I can predict with absolute certainty is that this will not end well for America.

Good for the Queen of England: she made as pointed a statement as is possible for a non-political head of state to make when she put on her birthday awards list a Jewish academic who has been fighting against the anti-zionism and antisemitism in Britain’s universities.

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Whenever Americans die or are tortured, Obama gets this bad fat smile on his face.

Well, whether people believe it or not doesn’t really matter. The time will come when none of that matters, for belief will evaporate in the face of naked force.

Ron19

Amazon.com Review
In Up Country, Nelson DeMille cannily revives the army career of Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, the cynical, hardworking Criminal Investigation Division man who was forcibly retired after solving the high-profile killing in The General’s Daughter. Brenner’s called back to investigate the murder of a young army lieutenant by his captain. The catch is, the crime took place during the heat of the Tet Offensive, and the only living witness was a North Vietnamese soldier who described the incident in a 30-year-old letter that has only recently come to light. Soon Brenner, a Vietnam vet, is on an ostensible nostalgia tour of his old stomping grounds. The trip immediately turns dangerous as he heads “up country” to search for the letter writer, accompanied by a gorgeous American businesswoman, who’s hiding more than even the smartest CID officer could imagine.
DeMille, who saw his own tour of duty in Vietnam (and even found a letter on a dead Vietnamese soldier), intersperses historical facts and chilling political possibilities with enough local color to provide some serious flashbacks for his fellow veterans. To non-vets the book may seem very long, but the payoff at the end is worth a couple hundred extra pages. –Barrie Trinkle

Oldflyer

Sarah Palin made a common sense observation in her recent speech to the conference in DC, which I paraphrase along these lines; In the Muslim world, and specifically in Syria, we have Sunnis and Shiites slaughtering each other. America should stand aside and let Allah sort it out.

Charles Martel

Oldflyer, Allah does not sort. According to the Qu’ran, Allah decided before any of us were born what our fate would be—heaven or hell regardless of what we do or believe.

If Allah, were sporting, which seems unlikely considering its eternally grumpy and and pissed-off nature, it would let the Sunnis and Shiites trade murders tit for tat. All the better to show the whimsical nature of its botched creation.

Wait. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what Allah does.

Never mind.

lee

RE: Syrian Civil War and the United States:

Fool me once–shame on you. Fool me twice–shame on me. Fool me over and over and over–I must the US federal government!

jj

Good for the Queen. (Sher merits the cap.) The important thing about her – which is an inherent power she, in real terms, quite rarely exercises, is that when she puts something into words, then that’s the way it is. In the UK there have been great debates within the “academic community” over whether this was a “boycott,” or simply a confluence of events, blah-blah-blah, weasel words, flapdoodle, bullshit. She has now – and I’ll bet quite wittingly – put a stop to that.

Among my regular mob of correspondents is a cousin in Leeds who once remarked that there is a very subtle, but powerful power she wields, which he once referred to as: “the power of the foot.” I asked for an explanation and he responded: “she gets mad, she puts it down (her foot), and the nonsense stops.” In this case she has had the people at the palace chop through the weasel words and call a spade a spade, or a boycott and boycott. She has defined what’s been going on as a boycott, and that word will now not be able to be unsaid. She has, in essence, looked them squarely in the eye and said: “save the BS for somebody who believes it. You have been engaged in a boycott, for no good reason, and We do not like it, and you precious academics will no longer get away with calling it anything else.” And now that she’s said it, they will indeed no longer be able to pretend to themselves that they are not engaged in a boycott. They may be able to live with that, but she isn’t going to let them get away with looking in the mirror and seeing it as any other way than what it is.

Good for her.

Michael Adams

And, speaking of England, this weekend was the anniversary of the Peasants’ revolt of 1381. I was too busy with other stuff, including eating a fabulous Fathers’ Day feast, beginning with my daughter’s breakfast of sausage gravy on biscuits, to offer a comment. But, it is important. Serfdom did not come to an end on the fifteenth of July, but the beginning of the end of serfdom surely does date from that time. Yes, I realize that people found ways around serfdom for a couple of centuries before. However, the the Revolt was a major milestone. The Revolting Peasants had a truly wonderful slogan:When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? (gentleman=nobility)

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